Summa I, Q.12, a.13 and Introduction to Q.13: Knowing God by Grace and the Names of God

Orientation #

He picks up at “Article 13” of q.12, which he says Thomas has put last because it treats a knowledge between the natural knowledge of God (the earlier articles) and the face-to-face vision; he refers back to the light of glory “we talked about before” and to Thomas’s earlier treatment of theology as a science (prev. lecture / earlier in the course). He closes by saying “we can begin with Article one” of q.13 next time. The previous class covered q.12 aa.11-12 and ended at the start of a.13; the next takes up q.13 aa.1-2.

The class, in order #

1. Opening aside: long thinking (“known for for thinking a long time”) #

Anecdote he does not believe: Aristotle holding a metal ball over a basin so the clatter wakes him if he dozes while thinking. “He wouldn’t do something as stupid as that,” but such stories arise because these people were known for thinking long.

2. Article 13: the three objections and sed contra (“as to something entirely what unknown”) #

The question: does grace give a higher knowledge of God than natural reason?

• Obj. 1 (Dionysius, Mystical Theology): the one best united to God in this life is united to Him as to something entirely unknown — said even of Moses, who had excellent knowledge of grace. But to be joined to God as to something unknown also happens by natural reason; Aristotle’s bat-and-daylight comparison (Aristotle thought the bat flew at night because daylight was too much for its eyes). So grace gives no fuller knowledge. He calls this “an interesting objection”: doesn’t the philosopher too know that God is above everything and so unknown?
• Obj. 2: by natural reason we reach divine things only through images (“we don’t think without imagining”); but Dionysius, Celestial Hierarchy ch. 1 (quoted “all over the place”), says the divine ray cannot shine on us unless veiled around with a variety of sacred veils — sensible things between us and the divine, as in the Eucharist, qui sub figuris variis latitat.
• Obj. 3, “a little different”: by grace our understanding adheres to God by faith, but faith does not seem to be knowledge; Gregory the Great: things seen do not have belief, things not seen have belief and not knowledge.
• Sed contra: 1 Corinthians — God revealed to us through the Spirit what none of the princes of this age knew; the gloss says the princes are the philosophers.

3. Why the article comes last: the in-between (“take the what extremes”) #

Point: Thomas treats natural knowledge and beatific vision first, then this middle knowledge, because we often think first the extremes, then the middle. His example: lying in bed sorting Shakespeare — ten tragedies at one end, five comedies at the other, then the “in between” plays. The first two objections press that the middle knowledge does not differ from natural knowledge: (1) in natural knowledge we know more what God is not than what He is, and Dionysius makes “we know that we don’t know” the highest knowledge; (2) both use sensible things.

4. The body: two things natural knowledge needs, and grace helps both (“Pouring in of a gratuitous light”) #

1. Natural knowledge requires (a) images taken from sensible things and (b) the natural understandable light by which conceptions are drawn from the images (I imagine a square; by the light of my mind I separate out what a square is).
2. Grace aids both: the natural light is confortato, strengthened, by the pouring in of a gratuitous light — “that’s what’s most essential.” Example: our prayer before studies asks the angels to strengthen the light of our mind. Candle vs. a big torch brought in: more light on the matter.
3. Sometimes (interdum) images are formed divinely in the imagination, more expressive of divine things than natural ones — most of all in prophetic visions (in visionibus prophetalibus); “more an exception.”
4. Sometimes sensible things or voices are formed divinely: the dove at Christ’s baptism, the Father’s voice “This is my beloved son” (some there thought it thunder). He stresses: Thomas does not speak of faith as another light alongside natural reason, but as a light that strengthens it and lets you see what you otherwise could not — namely that this is to be believed.

5. Digression: how natural knowledge begins (Aristotle, Proemium to Wisdom) (“separate out what’s common”) #

Order: sensing (touch, smell, taste, sight, hearing) → memory → from many memories, experience → the natural light of reason separates out what is common; that is the beginning of our thoughts.

• Child and “dog”: dog in the yard, dog on the street, then one day “dog!” — what is common has been separated out.
• Baby in the high chair and “cookie, cookie!”: same point.
• Boethius: the thing is singular when sensed, universal when understood; what a dog or cookie is is universal.

6. Reply to obj. 1: joined as to unknown, yet more fully (“both three and one”) #

By grace we still do not know what God is, so we are joined to Him as unknown; but we know Him more fully in two ways: (i) many and more excellent effects are shown us; (ii) we attribute to Him things from revelation reason cannot reach, “as that God is both three and one.” His development: the Trinity is “where faith begins,” since it enters the definition of the rest — the Incarnation is the Word made flesh, and John says “In the beginning was the Word… the Word was God” before “the Word was made flesh”; the Church (Vatican I and II) is defined, per Pius XII, as the mystical body of Christ, so Christ is in its definition. There is an order among mysteries; the fundamental one is the Trinity, which the philosophers do not know. Aside: Mohammedans think us polytheists because they don’t understand the Trinity.

7. Reply to obj. 2: images and a stronger light (“Father of Lights”) #

Whether images are natural or divinely formed, a more excellent knowledge is had insofar as the understandable light in a man is stronger. Example: Pharaoh’s dreams of fat and lean cows — the Hebrew prophet, with the superior light, reads them: seven years of plenty, seven of famine, store up. The light of faith “draws more out of the image.” James on “the Father of Lights” in the plural: three gifts — natural light of reason, light of faith, light of glory (by which we see God as He is).

8. Reply to obj. 3: belief is a certain knowledge; theology as borrowing science (“from the vision of the one who is believed”) #

Belief is a certain knowledge insofar as the understanding is determined by it to something knowable (even the Trinity is in some way knowable by us, through revelation and belief); but the determination to one comes not from the vision of the believer but of the one believed, so, lacking vision, it falls short of the knowledge that is in science, which determines the understanding by vision of first beginnings. Thomas “sees the truth in that objection.” Back-reference: Thomas earlier compared theology to sciences that borrow beginnings from others — astronomy from geometry, music from arithmetic — taking them on the word of the geometer; theology takes its beginnings from the science of God and the blessed (Thomas now among them). This goes back to Pythagoras and the quadrivium (arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, music), the first two fundamental. Aristotle argues the earth is a sphere from its circular shadow on the moon — a geometrical argument.

9. Aside: SCG III and what satisfies the mind (“enough to satisfy our mind”) #

In SCG III Thomas shows God is the end of all things, then of understanding creatures whose end is to see Him as He is, but in a different order: is common knowledge that God exists enough to satisfy us? No. The philosophers’ knowledge? No. Knowledge by faith? Imperfect. So, “with great probability,” only face-to-face vision is our end, and we don’t reach it in this life. Everyone knows he is not fully happy: Thackeray’s Vanity Fair ends with “who in this life ever gets what he wants, or having gotten it, is satisfied”; his own life — high school, college, graduation, teaching, retirement, old age — “there’s always something.” The more you know, the more you want to know; the more you know of God without knowing what He is, the more you want that. Here Thomas begins from the vision, an order fit for theology, not philosophy. Asides: Thackeray–Dickens rivalry (Vanity Fair and David Copperfield), Thackeray’s daughter asking why he doesn’t write like Mr. Dickens, their late handshake.

10. Transition to q.13: we name things as we know them (“Named by us according as we”) #

q.2–11 what God is (or is not), q.12 how we know Him, q.13 His names, since each thing is named by us as we know it. Scripture speaks by names: first petition of the Our Father, “our help is in the name of the Lord” — is our help in the name or in the Lord Himself? This shows how close naming and knowing are. Thomas’s proem to the Ethics: logic is about reason ordering its thinking, its thoughts, and the vocal sounds signifying them. How order thinking, which you cannot sense? By ordering thoughts. How order thoughts, which you cannot sense or imagine? Only by ordering the words that signify them — Aristotle, father of logic, defines the statement in Peri Hermeneias as a vocal sound; to define you must find words; counting needs sensible signs (seven, five).

• Greek planē and Latin error both come from words for wandering (planets wander; Christ to the Sadducees, planasthe).
• Christ teaches prayer by words (Luke, “Our Father”); a child first memorizes (his son Paul’s children at the rosary); Psalm: “the words of my mouth and the thought of my heart”; Shakespeare’s “words without thoughts don’t go to heaven”; Augustine went to hear Ambrose’s Ciceronian style, and with the words came the thoughts.
• Dionysius’s book is Divine Names, not “on God”; Thomas on the Psalms: whoever teaches teaches words or things, and in Scripture we teach words. “If you don’t know how to speak about God, you don’t know how to think about God.”

11. Survey of the twelve articles of q.13 (“twelve things are asked”) #

1. Whether God is nameable by us.
2. Whether some names are said of God substantially — “that stumps me,” since we don’t know what God is; oddly Thomas first argues the opposite, then takes that side himself. To be seen when we get there.
3. Whether some names are said properly or all metaphorically. “The Lord is my rock” is metaphor; “God is good” is what He is. Dionysius has one book on names said properly (Divine Names) and another on names said metaphorically. His exercise: pair a metaphor with what is said properly — “taste and see how sweet is the Lord.” The burning bush: bush = human nature, fire = divine nature, not consumed = neither nature swallowed up; Moses’ wonder is a wonder at the Incarnation. Fire as metaphor rests on likeness: light → divine understanding, heat → divine love, power to transform → divine power; or for the Trinity: the fire’s substance the Father, light the Son, heat the Spirit as love. Thomas will hold some names are said properly, though some hold all metaphorical.
4. Whether the many names are synonyms. God is altogether simple, His perfection and simplicity not two things; yet “simple” and “perfect” do not have the same meaning. The circle: from the one center proceed many radii whose endpoints differ; knowing God from creatures, we come back along each line and truly call the center the beginning of each, though one point. So many true names, not synonyms, because named from creatures.
5. Whether names are said of God and creatures univocally or equivocally: univocal = same meaning, equivocal = different meanings. No name is said univocally of God and creature; but is the shared name by chance, or is there a reason “good” is said of dinner, a man, and God? That article gives the reason.
6. Whether some names are said of God from time: “creator,” “ruler” — eternally or after creating? It seems something is added or changed in God. [ed.: he passes from the fifth to the seventh; the sixth article is not mentioned.] 8–10. Now descending to the name “God” itself: whether it names a nature or an operation; whether it is communicable; whether it is univocal or equivocal as said of God by nature, by participation (“you are all gods”; the saints), and by opinion (secundum opinionem, Zeus). Three of twelve articles on the name God.
7. Whether “who is” / “I am who am” (Exodus, Moses asking the name) is most properly God’s name; Christ to Catherine of Siena: “I am who am, and you are she who is not” — sayable to all of us.
8. Whether affirmative propositions (propositiones, now “statement”) can be formed about God, since we know rather what He is not and affirmation has subject and predicate, so multiplicity. Distinct from the others as about statements, not names.

12. Closing: “name” for God in the Psalms — metonymy? (“our help is in the name of the Lord”) #

In the Psalms “name” seems substituted for God (praise the name of the Lord). He asks whether this is metonymy: container for contained or vice versa, name for named — “a bad time” (the things done then were bad), “an evil place,” “let the earth praise the Lord” (men on earth). He thinks it looks like metonymy here; left as a suggestion. Stops: begin Article 1 next time. Student question: did Aristotle really argue the earth is round from the shadow? Yes, one of his arguments; many thought it flat, the more intelligent perhaps not.

His words #

• “joined to Him as to something unknown” — Dionysius’s phrase, the highest knowledge of God in this life
• “sacred veils” — Dionysius: the sensible things between us and the divine ray
• “gratuitous light” — the poured-in light that strengthens (confortato) the natural light of reason; not a second light alongside it
• “natural understandable light” [ed.: lumen intelligibile] — the natural light of reason drawing conceptions from images
• “images” [ed.: phantasms] — taken from sense, or formed divinely
• “Proemium to Wisdom” [ed.: Metaphysics I] — sense, memory, experience, then the universal
• “the beginnings” [ed.: principles] — what theology takes from the science of God and the blessed
• “Father of Lights” — three gifts: light of reason, faith, glory
• “planē / error” — both from words for wandering; mind wanders into error
• “said substantially / properly / metaphorically / univocally / equivocally / from time” — the q.13 vocabulary as he lists it
• “propositiones” — now means “statement”; affirmative statements about God
• “metonym / metonymy” — container for contained, name for named; possibly what “name of the Lord” is

Texts #

Read in class

• Thomas, ST I q.12 a.13 (objections, sed contra, body, three replies)
• Thomas, ST I q.13 proem and list of twelve articles
• Dionysius, Mystical Theology and Celestial Hierarchy ch. 1 (as quoted in obj. 1–2)
• Gregory the Great, homily (as quoted in obj. 3)
• 1 Corinthians (sed contra, with gloss)

Mentioned

• Aristotle, bat and daylight (obj. 1); Proemium to Wisdom; Peri Hermeneias (definition of statement); earth’s shadow on the moon
• Boethius, singular when sensed, universal when understood
• John 1 (inferred): the Word; Matthew/Mark baptism scene (inferred); Exodus burning bush and “I am who am” (inferred); Genesis, Pharaoh’s dreams (inferred); Luke, the Our Father; Epistle of James, Father of Lights; Psalms (“our help is in the name of the Lord”, “let the earth praise”)
• Thomas, proem to Nicomachean Ethics commentary; Commentary on the Psalms (“words or things”); SCG III
• Dionysius, Divine Names and the (lost) book of metaphorical names
• Pius XII, Church as mystical body; Vatican I and II on the Church
• Catherine of Siena’s dialogue with Christ
• Shakespeare’s plays; Thackeray, Vanity Fair; Dickens, David Copperfield

His questions #

• Doesn’t the philosopher also know that God is above everything and unknown to us? Yes — but by grace we still know Him more fully: more effects shown, and truths like the Trinity that reason cannot reach.
• How does the light of faith relate to the natural light of reason? Not another light alongside it, but one that strengthens it so you see this is to be believed.
• Why is God called the Father of Lights, in the plural? Three gifts: natural reason, faith, glory.
• Is belief knowledge? A certain knowledge, determined to one by the vision of the one believed, not the believer; short of science.
• Is the knowledge that God exists, or the philosophers’ knowledge, or faith, enough to satisfy the mind? No; only seeing God face to face (SCG III).
• How can you order your thinking, or your thoughts, which you cannot sense? By ordering the words that signify them; so speaking of God matters for thinking of God.
• How can many names be truly said of the altogether simple God without being synonyms? Because we name Him from creatures — the circle’s center is the beginning of many lines but one point.
• Is “good” said of God and a man by chance? No; there is a reason for the common name — the matter of article 5.
• Is “our help is in the name of the Lord” a metonymy? He suggests it looks like one; left open.
• Did Aristotle really argue the earth is round from its shadow on the moon? Yes, one of his arguments.